mixing it up

Erin has found things a bit of a challenge since our big weekend. Still catching up on sleep and experiencing the inevitable 'deflated' feeling that one gets after a big event she's been pushing the boundaries. I wanted to do school work with her today so we could have some positive one on one time, but I also wanted to mix it up a bit to add interest and excitement to avoid a spiral into the abyss of whinge. Taking an activity from my new Peggy Kaye book "Games for Reading" I sat on the lounge room floor with tape, scissors, texta and index cards. Ignoring the low level whine that has been Erin's default setting for the last few days, I quietly started writing on the cards and sticking a bit of tape to them, then sticking them to parts of my body. She fell for it. Within minutes she was inches from me trying to work out what each word said and giving ideas for new cards. A few minutes later I was decorated from head to foot in index cards saying "tummy", "foot" and "finger"! We took them off and decorated her, then took them off and did me again. Twenty minutes together of positive FUN! Neither of us had a cross word to say for the whole time. I tucked the precious words into an envelope to put in the cupboard for next time. Oh, and she learned to read a bit too!!